Chapter XXIX.—The
Other Valentinian Emanations in Conformity with the Pythagorean System
of Numbers.

The quaternion, then, advocated by Valentinus, is
“a source of the everlasting nature having roots;”700700 These
words are a line out of Pythagoras’ Golden
Verses:—Πηγή τις
ἀενάου
φύσεως
ῥιζώματ᾽
ἔχουσα—(48). and Sophia (is the power) from whom the
animal and material creation has derived its present condition.
But Sophia is called “Spirit,” and the Demiurge
“Soul,” and the Devil “the ruler of this
world,” and Beelzebub “the (ruler) of demons.”
These are the statements which they put forward. But further, in
addition to these, rendering, as I have previously mentioned, their
entire system of doctrine (akin to the) arithmetical (art), (they
determine) that the thirty Æons within the Pleroma have again, in
addition to these, projected other Æons, according to the
(numerical) proportion (adopted by the Pythagoreans), in order that the
Pleroma might be formed into an aggregate, according to a perfect
number. For how the Pythagoreans divided (the celestial sphere)
into twelve and thirty and sixty parts, and how they have minute parts
of diminutive portions, has been made evident.

In this manner these (followers of Valentinus)
subdivide the parts within the Pleroma. Now likewise the parts in
the Ogdoad have been subdivided, and there has been projected Sophia,
which is, according to them, mother of all living creatures, and the
“Joint Fruit of the Pleroma,” (who is) the Logos,701701 The Abbe
Cruise thinks that a comparison of this passage with the corresponding
one in Irenæus suggests the addition of οἱ δορυφόροι
after Λόγος, i.e., the Logos and his
satellites. [Vol. i. p. 381, this series.] (and other Æons,) who are celestial
angels that have their citizenship in Jerusalem which is above, which
is in heaven. For this Jerusalem is Sophia, she (that is) outside
(the Pleroma), and her spouse is the “Joint Fruit of the
Pleroma.” And the Demiurge projected souls; for this
(Sophia) is the essence of souls. This (Demiurge), according to
them, is Abraham, and these (souls) the children of Abraham. From
the material and devilish essence the Demiurge fashioned bodies for the
souls. This is what has been declared: “And God
formed man, taking clay from the earth, and breathed upon his face the
breath of life, and man was made into a living soul.”702702Gen. ii. 7. This, according to them, is the inner
man, the natural (man), residing in the material body: Now a
material (man) is perishable, incomplete, (and) formed out of the
devilish essence. And this is 89the material man, as it were, according
to them an inn,703703 Or,
“subterranean” (Cruice). or domicile, at
one time of soul only, at another time of soul and demons, at another
time of soul and Logoi.704704
Epiphanius, Hær., xxxi. sec. 7. And these are the Logoi that have
been dispersed from above, from the “Joint Fruit of the
Pleroma” and (from) Sophia, into this world. And they dwell
in an earthly body, with a soul, when demons do not take up their abode
with that soul. This, he says, is what has been written in
Scripture: “On this account I bend my knees to the God and
Father and Lord of our Lord Jesus Christ, that God would grant you to
have Christ dwelling in the inner man,”705705Eph. iii.
14–18.—that is, the natural (man), not the
corporeal (one),—“that you may be able to understand what
is the depth,” which is the Father of the universe, “and
what is the breadth,” which is Staurus, the limit of the Pleroma,
“or what is the length,” that is, the Pleroma of the
Æons. Wherefore, he says, “the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto
him;”7067061 Cor. ii. 14. but folly, he says,
is the power of the Demiurge, for he was foolish and devoid of
understanding, and imagined himself to be fabricating the world.
He was, however, ignorant that Sophia, the Mother, the Ogdoad, was
really the cause of all the operations performed by him who had no
consciousness in reference to the creation of the
world.

700 These
words are a line out of Pythagoras’ Golden
Verses:—Πηγή τις
ἀενάου
φύσεως
ῥιζώματ᾽
ἔχουσα—(48).

701 The Abbe
Cruise thinks that a comparison of this passage with the corresponding
one in Irenæus suggests the addition of οἱ δορυφόροι
after Λόγος, i.e., the Logos and his
satellites. [Vol. i. p. 381, this series.]